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Introduction

Any
massacre or mob attack condoned by authorities and directed against the people and property of a minority group is considered a pogrom. However, the term pogrom, a Russian word meaning devastation or riot, is usually applied specifically to attacks on the Jewish population within the Russian Empire during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although the tsarist regime did not organize pogroms, the anti-Semitic policy the government carried out made them possible. Official persecution and harassment of Jews led perpetrators to believe that their violence was legitimate. The Russian Orthodox church also played a major role in encouraging suspicion of, and hatred toward, the Jewish population.

The pogroms took place within three distinct periods: 1881–84, 1903–06, and 1917–21. Each wave of violence coincided with political crises and periods of social upheaval within Eastern Europe in general, and Russia in particular.

1881–84

The first extensive pogroms followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Although the assassin was not a Jew and only one of his associates was Jewish, false rumors that the Jews were to blame for the murder roused Russian mobs in more than 200 cities and towns to attack Jews and destroy their property. The Jewish community, which was largely restricted to living within the Pale of Settlement, was routinely terrorized over the next several years. The violence inspired mass emigration as Jewish families fled to Western Europe and the United States. The pogroms also awakened among many in the Jewish community a determination to create a nation of their own. The subsequent migration of thousands of Eastern European Jews to Palestine, the ancient Jewish homeland, heralded the birth of the modern Zionist movement. (See alsoZionism.)

1903–06

During the next 20 years, pogroms occurred less frequently, but from 1903 to 1906 they again became a common occurrence. This period coincided with the social and political upheaval surrounding the Russian Revolution of 1905. Although a number of Jews were involved with the revolutionary movement, they were not in the majority. As the movement gained momentum, however, the government and anti-Semitic Russian nationalists identified the Jews with the revolution, fomenting resentment and violent retribution among the non-Jewish populace.

Some of the most severe pogroms followed the publication of the October Manifesto in 1905. Many Jews joined in the celebrations that accompanied the circulation of this document, in which Tsar Nicholas II promised new civil liberties and the formation of a representative assembly. Loyalists responded to the revolutionary fervor with their own demonstrations in support of the tsar, which frequently turned into pogroms against the Jews and, in some instances, against liberals and intellectuals as well. One of the worst of these pogroms occurred in the port city of Odessa, where fires and armed skirmishes left 300 dead and thousands wounded.

Although the pogroms that immediately followed Alexander II’s assassination in 1881 were inspired by rumors of a Jewish political conspiracy, many pogroms at the beginning of the 20th century were fueled by the revival of the blood libel, a superstitious belief in Jewish ritual murder that originated in the Middle Ages, when it was widely believed that Jews murdered Christian children in order to obtain their blood for use in religious ceremonies. The Russian Orthodox church, having long fostered a climate of anti-Semitism in the empire, was responsible for spreading the blood libel, which was also condoned and even encouraged by the government.

One of the bloodiest massacres of the period, the 1903 pogrom in Kishinev (now Chisinau), Moldavia (now Moldova), was typical in many respects. The body of a Christian child was found shortly before the Easter holiday, and rumors quickly spread that the child had been murdered by Jews who needed his blood in order to make their Passover matzos. Beginning on Easter Sunday, Christian mobs attacked the town’s Jewish community, killing, looting, and destroying for two days without hindrance from police or the military. By the time troops were finally called out and the mob dispersed, 45 Jews had been killed, nearly 600 had been wounded, and 1,500 Jewish homes had been pillaged. Those responsible for inciting the pogroms were not punished, though an investigation of the Christian child’s murder revealed that his father was responsible for his death. The Kishinev pogrom sparked international protests, with large demonstrations held in London, England, Paris, France, and New York City, New York.

1917–21

Following the wave of pogroms that accompanied the Revolution of 1905 and circulation of the October Manifesto, the frequency of pogroms again diminished, particularly with the demise of the Russian monarchy in March 1917. Despite calls for equal rights for Jews among some parties in Russia’s new legislature, however, anti-Semitism continued to flourish in Russia. The perception among anti-Semitic conservatives and loyalists in the military that Jews were responsible for the Revolution of 1917 led to a series of devastating pogroms over the next four years. Unlike the pogroms carried out under imperial rule, the violence during this period was not sanctioned by the government but was largely the work of counterrevolutionary military forces and Russian and non-Russian nationalist mobs. These pogroms were among the most severe in the country’s history; roughly 60,000 Jews were killed between 1917 and 1921. The events provoked renewed international outrage, spurred massive emigration to the West, and strengthened the Zionist movement.

The first incidents following the Revolution of 1917 were perpetrated by the Red Army during its chaotic retreat from the battle lines of World War I, but the new Soviet government quickly established anti-pogrom laws that made such attacks by Red Army personnel punishable by death. However, a number of pogroms were committed by soldiers outside the Soviet sphere. A pogrom carried out in February 1919 by the Ukrainian army at Proskurov (now Khmelnytskyy, Ukraine) left approximately 1,700 Jews dead after one day of violence; an action perpetrated by the White (counterrevolutionary) Army that autumn resulted in more than 1,500 deaths. By 1920, the Red Army had regained control of the Ukraine territory, but pogroms continued to rage through the region for another year.

Pogroms Outside of Russia

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland

Pogroms
have also occurred in other countries, notably in Poland, in Germany under Adolf Hitler, and, on a smaller scale, in Austria, Romania, and the Balkans. The events of Kristallnacht in Germany in 1938 were considered by many to be a pogrom. In some instances, the return of Jewish Holocaust survivors to their former villages elicited violent attacks by anti-Semitic nationalists. The largest such attack took place in Kielce, Poland, on July 4, 1946, when a mob attacked the small community of Jews remaining in the city, leaving 42 persons murdered and many more injured.

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